Cash strapped N.C. looks to milk money out of citizens in its battered local economy

When
it comes to internet purchases, you're supposed to
individually list them on your yearly tax return and then pay back
sales taxes to the state. Of course, few people do this.
Now the government of North Carolina and other
states are battling Amazon.com
and other e-tailers to get these records.

Amazon.com this
week filed
suit against the North Carolina state government --
specifically, the Department of Revenue (DOR) -- claiming that
the state's demand for records of virtually every North Carolina
resident who has purchased anything from Amazon since 2003 was
not only unreasonable, but a violation of privacy.

Amazon
writes in a filing for the case, "In re: Amazon.com LLC vs
Kenneth R. Lay", Case No. 10-00664, U.S. District Court, Western
District of Washington, "[T]he DOR has no business seeking to
uncover the identity of Amazon's customers who purchased expressive
content, which makes up the majority of the nearly 50 million
products sold to North Carolina residents during the audit
period."

If the case is lost, Amazon may have to turn
over the records of millions of its customers in North Carolina.
Those individuals who purchased from Amazon (but did not report their
purchase on their tax returns) might be audited and face civil
penalties. At the very least, they would likely be expected to repay
back taxes on the items they failed to report to the government.

In
North Carolina, failing to pay state sales taxes is handled as a
civil infraction. Under the codes
105 236(5)c. and 105 236(5)a., citizens can face additional
fines for dodging state taxes. The penalty would likely be to
pay 25 percent more tax, except on small items, which would require
taxpayers to pay only an additional 10 percent fine.

The fight
is the latest in the growing trend of states hungering for internet
tax revenue. Many states have passed or are debating laws that
would tax
digital downloads such as those offered by Amazon, Steam,
Apple's iTunes store, or others. While many in the public have
complained about excessive taxation on the federal level, it is
actually the states that have been pushing the most for bigger taxes
of late. The federal government has made some mild efforts
to fight
taxation of the internet.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

There may be no direct revenue, but government programs can contribute to long term production. Education creates more skilled workers and inventors. Space programs and military intelligence pour money into the American private sector to create new technologies. The DOT creates roads that benefit private industry and often employs private contractors to build and maintain these roads.

Sure there is waste, but to say they contribute very little is a stretch. Even if the money goes to a government job that doesn't appear to produce anything, like soldiers & security workers, at least that money lands in American laborer's pockets and not straight in the Chinese manufacturing industry.

You are talking about the idea of government INVESTING in programs with the idea that there will be some sort of return on that investment, even if it takes a long time. That is something I agree with, but you have to look at the situations where government wastes money, not in investments, but on really stupid garbage.

Now, one big waste is how much money is paid, not to elected officials, but to support staff for elected officials. How much do these people make, and why is it so much more than the same position would pay in the private sector? Why does the government knowingly pay 10 times the going rate for contracted services when the people doing the work could get paid the same if they would be hired by the government directly? Why is it that we don't see government looking at COSTS as the reason for budget problems, rather than on just looking at increasing tax revenue dollars as the solution?

quote: Why does the government knowingly pay 10 times the going rate for contracted services when the people doing the work could get paid the same if they would be hired by the government directly? Why is it that we don't see government looking at COSTS as the reason for budget problems, rather than on just looking at increasing tax revenue dollars as the solution?

ZOMG you've suggested SOCIALISM as a way to reduce costs!

The Republican party DEMANDS that the government create inefficiency by hiring contractors to do those jobs. Anything else is socialism!!

Keep the government out of the private sector by making them use wasteful contractors, then complain about wasteful spending!